Tema lawyer killed over Ghc3,000?

It has emerged that the prominent Tema-based lawyer, Robert Samuel Blay, may have been killed in 2011 because of GH¢3,000.

This amount was supposed to be the legal fees R.S. Blay allegedly charged Frank Amegadzi aka Olenke aka Papa in order to defend him in a previous robbery case that landed him in prison custody until he was released under the ‘Justice For All’ programme.


Nkrabeah and Associates, lawyers defending Olenke, who is standing trial in a Rambo-style robbery of a popular Forex Bureau in Tema, revealed the amount in a rejoinder to DAILY GUIDE’s story captioned “Lawyer Killer ‘Grabbed”, which was published on Tuesday November 19.


“In short, Frank Amegadzi has not been grabbed for killing any lawyer. Our client, who has a fairly prosperous businesswoman for a wife, will definitely not kill his family friend of a lawyer, if at all, not for a paltry sum of GH¢3,000 – assuming this imaginative motive were to be true,” Nkrabeah Effah Dartey, who is lead counsel for the accused, wrote to DAILY GUIDE in a rejoinder.


“We are a firm of lawyers based in Accra. Our attention has been drawn to the front page publication in today’s issue of the “Daily Guide” with the banner headline “Lawyer Killer Grabbed” and the picture of our client Frank Amegadzi posted therein.


“We are completely shocked by the contents of the story because your reporter based his story on evidence given in camera in the Courtroom in a robbery case in which our client is 5th Accused.


The High Court presided over by Mr. Justice Logoh is hearing proceedings involving PW3 named by your reporter as Obiri Yeboah in camera, and only defence Counsel, Court officials and the accused are in the Courtroom.

“We cannot understand how your reporter’s hands fell on the evidence, and we are more concerned because we are not allowed by law to disclose the cross examination we made and its impact on the concoctions of the witness.


“Suffice it to say that our client Frank Amegadzi is in custody on an alleged robbery case, but even notwithstanding the inventions of Yeboah, the Police have not thought it necessary to even take a Statement – be it cautioned, investigative or ordinary from Frank Amegadzi all this while.


“In short, Frank Amegadzi has NOT been grabbed for killing any lawyer. Our client who has a fairly prosperous businesswoman for a wife, will definitely not kill his family friend of a lawyer, if at all, not for a paltry sum of 3,000 Gh Cedis – assuming this imaginative motive were to be true.


“We are not lawyers nor spokesmen for the Ghana Police Service, but we have no doubt in our minds that if and when they eventually capture the killers of our late learned friend Blay, they will certainly put the culprits before Court for a full trial.


“For now, we as Counsel for Frank Amegadzi, invite the reading public to disregard the in camera testimony of that personage responding to the name Yeboah – as per your publication – who is PW3 in the ongoing robbery trial.”


Last Tuesday, DAILY GUIDE published that there appeared to be a breakthrough with regard to solving the mystery of the gruesome murder of a prominent Tema-based lawyer, Robert Samuel Blay in 2011.

The murder had remained an unsolved mystery since 2011 because the police were unable to trace the killers.


However, two weeks ago, a prosecution witness in a different robbery case blew the cover of suspects whom he alleged conspired to murder R.S. Blay. He named the suspect and his girlfriend Dora Sarpongmaa, 7th accused, as those behind the mystery death of the young and popular Tema lawyer.


WITNESS: “My Lord, the 5th accused persons said after he gave money to lawyer Blay to defend him, he (the lawyer) did not come (to court), and because of that he was remanded into Nsawam prison; whereas the 5th accused person’s girlfriend is the 7th accused, and at the same time lawyer Blay has expressed interest in Dora the 7th accused person. Therefore he is sending Dora, the 7th accused person, to him to say that she wants to eat fried rice and chicken so that they will go to Papaye and buy it. And that after they have gone to Papaye and they have bought the food and coming back or returning, then the 7th accused person should signal him to know that they have gone and they are coming back or returning. .…..My Lord, then the next day I met the 5th accused and asked him that why, and that somebody that you say you are coming to collect your money from, why did you stab him?”


It would be recalled that the Tema Metropolis was thrown into shock when on October 5, 2011, Lawyer R.S. Blay was reported dead at the Tema General Hospital after he was allegedly stabbed in the throat with a broken beer bottle.


The prosecution witness was giving evidence in the trial of the suspects in the robbery of a popular Forex Bureau in Tema.